


Claustrophobia

by iloveitblue



Series: Prompts [150]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, prephlint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 17:13:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2858594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iloveitblue/pseuds/iloveitblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where the elevator stops.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Claustrophobia

"Sirs, Captain Rogers requests your presence."

Clint and Phil both look up, even when they knew that JARVIS wasn’t exactly in the ceiling, frowning. They were in the middle of Clint’s debrief for his latest mission. It’d been a little messier than expected but nothing Clint couldn’t handle on his own.

Clint and Phil stood up, looking up at the ceiling again. “Where is he, JARVIS?” Phil asked.

"Currently 9 floors above you, sir. I’ve already called the elevator to receive you on your current floor."

"Thank you, JARVIS." Phil nodded curtly at the ceiling, then walked towards the elevator, Clint right beside him. "Do you know what he needs?" He asked Clint.

Clint shrugged and made a non-committal noise. “Maybe he wants to ask you out.” He teased.

Phil rolled his eyes at the archer and shook his head. It’d been a running joke with Phil and the Avengers - his hero worship with the First Avenger - ever since Phil came back. He’s long since stopped trying to make them all quit it, and as the saying goes, If you can’t beat them, join ‘em.

But oh, if only the archer knew.

"Maybe. Do you think I should wear my good suit tonight? I might not make it home though and I don’t want to see it ripped to shreds." 

Clint barked out a laugh as the elevator doors closed. “Someone thinks they’re getting lucky tonight.” Clint nudged him on the shoulder.

Phil shrugged. “I’m generally lucky. I even came back from the dead once. Besides-“

They both tensed as the elevator shook and suddenly halted, the lights went out and a second later they were both bathed in the red emergency light.

"JARVIS?" Clint asked.

There was no response.

"Shit." Clint frowned, as he started to look around the small space. "I think we’re trapped." Clint moved to the front of the doors and tried to pull it apart to open it but to no avail. "Stark might have accidentally blown something up." He started pushing the elevator doors, anything to make it budge. 

"Clint, Clint calm down." Phil touched his shoulder only for the blond to tense and pull away. "Are you okay?"

"I’m- I’m fine. I can work with this. Tony’ll get this thing running in no time and we can get out of here." Clint said in a rush.

"What’s wrong?" Phil frowned, watching the archer pace in the small area in front of him.

"We can’t be trapped, Phil. I can’t-" He ran a frustrated hand through his hair and slumped against the metal, slowly sliding down to sit with his knees close to his chest. "I don’t do small spaces."

"Clint, you’re always in the vents. What do you mean you don’t do small spaces?" more than 10 years and counting and this is the first time Phil’s heard about this. About Clint being afraid of enclosed spaces.

"The vents are different, In the vents, I can always move forward and back. I can go down through a grate and I always know how to get out.  _This_  is different. There’s nowhere to go and there’s nothing we can do. I don’t- I can’t do this.”

Phil spared him, and sat as far away from Clint as possible. “You need to relax. Try not to think about it, maybe? I’m sure it’ll be any minute now, Stark’ll get us out. Until then, I’ll give you space, I’ll stay as far away as I can, okay?”

"No!" Clint looked up only to see Coulson midway to actually sitting down. "I mean, I’d rather you stay closer." He mumbled. "I’ll feel safer if you’re close."

Phil straightened himself and walked towards Clint. He crossed his legs as he sat down next to Clint, not really caring anymore if his pants got ruined by sitting on the floor.

"Now, let’s try to relax." Phil suggested. "Would you like to hold my hand?"

Clint paused for a moment before he nodded his head. Phil held out his palm and Clint took it. Phil noticed that the archer was still slightly shaking. “Deep breaths. It’ll be okay.”

The deep breaths exercises seemed to have calmed Clint down a little, but not enough. So Phil decided maybe he could just distract Clint.

"One time, when I was a kid, a friend borrowed my Captain America action figure without my permission. I was so mad at him, he cried until I forgave him. We were 6, I think." Phil recalled.

Clint snorted, the tension in his shoulders slowly disappearing.

—-

It didn’t take a few minutes to get the elevators to work again. It took 2 hours. In that time, Phil and Clint exchanged silly stories about their childhood, effectively distracting Clint enough for him to calm down completely.

In that time as well, their positions shifted from just being side by side to Clint leaning his head on Phil’s shoulder and Phil resting his cheek against Clint’s hair, their legs tangled a bit from all the shifting, and their hands still intertwined.

For a moment, Phil deluded himself into thinking that they were on a couch, talking about something or the other and not trapped inside an elevator. 

Then that moment ended. The lights came back on and the elevator started to move again. Clint immediately disentangled himself from Phil and Phil tried not to miss the archer’s hand in his so much.

Phil followed suit and stood next to Clint. When the elevator door opened, it was to a grinning Tony. “Sorry about that. I didn’t realize someone was in there until an hour ago. Everyone okay?”

"Yes, Thank you." Phil nodded.

"Yeah, I know. I can see that." Tony waved him off. "I mean is everyone  _okay_?” Tony asked again, waggling his eyebrows. Phil and Clint both look at each other before gave Tony a curious frown. Tony groaned and rolled his eyes. “You guys were cuddling in there! Don’t even lie to me. JARVIS has video evidence of the last few seconds before the lights came back on in there. You can’t lie to me.” He said with a satisfied smirk. “Barton, you  _dog_.” Tony slapped the archer good-naturedly.

Phil thinks it might have been his eyes not adjusting to the red light from before that might have made him see that Clint’s neck and ears had gone pink when he told Tony to fuck off before disappearing to the terrace.

**Author's Note:**

> [Here on tumblr](http://promptmephlint.tumblr.com/post/106244778826/i-would-like-to-formally-apologize-for-bombarding)


End file.
